There is one word that explains a space shuttle component, a county in Southern Ireland, an expression that rudely tells someone to be quiet and green floor covering-cork. A word recognized by various meanings for at least 2,000 years, the mainstream flooring industry fell in step at the turn of the 20th century, laying cork mainly in commercial applications with a small footprint in homes.

The recent growing awareness of manufacturing and production effects on the environment has once again brought cork into the limelight, this time for its environmental attributes, though its inherent durability and sound deadening properties remain un-changed. With its effects from growth to the home, cork has proven itself a green element that makes a goal of sustainability attainable.

The material used in cork flooring comes from the bark of the quercus suber, a variety of oak grown in the Mediterranean region, about 50% of which comes from Portugal. It is one of the few types of wood flooring that doesn't sacrifice the life of the tree to harvest material. Instead, after nine years of maturation, the bark of the tree is stripped using hand-harvesting techniques, keeping the tree alive, similar to the way in which a sheep is shorn.

"Regular extraction of cork is a fundamental contribution to the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the rural areas of the Mediterranean where the cork oak thrives," said Ronit McGuthrie, marketing manager of Amorim.

Cork removes more CO2 from the atmosphere than traditional wood flooring species because the resource is harvested without felling the tree, said Gary Keeble, marketing manager of USFloors.

Beyond keeping the tree alive, removing the bark .....

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